


The Calm After the Storm

by Mizmak



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Declarations Of Love, First Kiss, Happy Ending, M/M, Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:07:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27454717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mizmak/pseuds/Mizmak
Summary: A frightening thunderstorm brings Aziraphale to Crowley's door at an unexpected hour.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 101





	The Calm After the Storm

The storm had been brewing over London all night, so Crowley should not have been surprised to be woken from a sound sleep by an enormous crash of thunder.

What did surprise him was the sound of a persistent door buzzer.

“Go to Hell!” he shouted. The noise stopped briefly, but after a crackle of lightning followed by another huge boom, it started up again.

_Blast_. Crowley sat up, rubbing his eyes. He looked at the phone on his nightstand. The notification symbol was blinking. Upon closer inspection, they turned out to be missed calls from a certain angel in Soho. 

His friend had left sixteen voicemail messages.

He threw back the covers and strolled down the corridor to the living room. The buzzer had stopped. Now there was pounding. Lots of loud, frantic pounding on the front door. 

Crowley went to the door, flung it open, and saw a bedraggled and drenched angel standing there. “Hello, Aziraphale.” He ushered his friend inside. “Been out for a stroll?” 

“Storm,” Aziraphale murmured as they walked into the living area. He held a soggy hat, twisting it with his fingers.

Crowley looked at the flat’s huge windows. Rain pelted them, cascading in wide rivulets. Wind rattled the panes. Another flash of lightning lit up the room, and another, and then several more bolts seemed to tear the storm clouds asunder. “Yup. That’s a storm all right.”

Thunderclaps followed the lightning like cannons firing in the rain. Suddenly Aziraphale was right beside him, clasping at his pyjama top. “Frightening.”

“There, there.” Crowley patted his shoulder. The coat was damp. “Did you _walk_ here?”

Aziraphale nodded. “Not a cab to be found. Streets are flooding.” He cast a forlorn glance at his hat, barely recognizable as such. “I got wet.”

“Yeah, I can see that.” Crowley now felt more awake, and his grumpiness faded along with his facetiousness. “Let me take care of it.” He snapped his fingers, and Aziraphale’s clothes instantly dried, though the hat still looked crumpled.

“Oh. _Thank you_.” He let go his hold of Crowley’s arm. “Silly of me. Too windy for an umbrella.” He sighed as he studied the hat. “Do you think they still make this style?”

“Not in this century, Angel.” Crowley walked over to a cabinet, from which he produced two glasses and a bottle of wine. He led Aziraphale down the corridor to a smaller room with a sofa that faced a fireplace. “Sit. Rest.” He filled one of the glasses and handed it over. “Drink.”

They settled in, side by side. In here, the thunder wasn’t quite so loud, and there were no windows. Crowley got a fire going with another snap of his fingers.

After they had sipped at their wine for a few minutes, Aziraphale said, “So sorry to disturb you, my dear.”

“Didn’t know storms bothered you that much.” They’d lived through plenty of them over the centuries, including the big one that had signaled imminent destruction of the Earth. But now that he thought of it, perhaps that last one, when Aziraphale had ridden through storm-tossed skies in utter desperation, had been one tempest too many.

He patted his friend’s arm. “This is an ordinary storm, I’m certain of it. Nothing to fret over.”

A distant roll of thunder echoed through the cavernous apartment. Aziraphale shuddered under his touch. “Of course, you are right. It was just…it was so terribly noisy in the bookshop. I got rattled, I’m afraid.”

And so he had come here, to Crowley. “Didn’t hear you calling. I turn the ringer off when I sleep. Sorry.”

“Oh, dear. I woke you up, didn’t I?”

“No. The thunder woke me.”

“Ah. Well, I shan’t feel quite so guilty, then.” Aziraphale smiled softly. “I do apologize for all those messages, though. Please erase them without listening, will you? I may have been a bit, um, unsettled when I spoke.”

“Oh? Said something embarrassing, did you?” Crowley couldn’t imagine what. 

“Possibly.” Aziraphale stared into his wine glass. “I…well…it was…it reminded me of the other storm, and I…that is, I kept telling myself it was nothing ominous, but every time the thunder came, it made me feel so anxious.” He bit his lower lip, then took a sip of wine. Then he glanced at Crowley, and touched his hand. “I didn’t want to be alone.”

A sudden warmth flushed through him, and it wasn’t from the wine. Crowley shifted closer. “Come over and disturb me anytime, Angel.”

He reached for the bottle, and refilled their glasses. The firelight glinted off the glass as he set the bottle on the coffee table. He felt ever so cozy, which was not something he generally felt in this starkly appointed flat of his.

The presence of his best friend close beside him surely helped. 

They sat there drinking quietly for a while, with the rumbles distant at first. By the time they finished the bottle and set their empty glasses down, though, Crowley noted the noise outside growing in intensity once more.

He wasn’t afraid of storms. He could handle any old ordinary, non-supernaturally generated weather the Earth could throw at him, of that he felt certain.

The storm suddenly strengthened then, with lightning so strong the glow could be seen even in their hideaway. The thunder came nearly on top of the lightning, and shook the walls.

Crowley clutched at Aziraphale, grabbing tightly to his arm. The storm must be directly overhead. “Okay, _that_ was loud.” It had rattled him, too. When the next boom hit, even louder, he grasped at the angel’s chest, taking hold of his vest. “For God—for Satan’s—oh for _fuck’s sake_.”

Aziraphale had Crowley’s arm in a firm grip. “Are you _sure_ it’s not out of the ordinary?”

“Positive.” There was simply no way another Armageddon was getting dumped on his doorstep. He had lost all sense of feeling calm, though. _I am not afraid of a stupid storm_ , he told himself firmly. 

Another round of lightning and thunder rolled through and over and around them—but it was not as bad as that last one, and the next was farther away, and then the lightning was no longer visible, and the rumbles ebbed into the distance.

Crowley started to loosen his hold on the vest. Aziraphale softened his grip on his arm, but held on, and guided Crowley’s hand around his waist. “Please keep it there, my dear. I find it comforting. _You_ are comforting.”

He’d been called many things in his long lifetime, but that was a new one. “Really? Not sure _comforting angels_ is in a demon’s job description.” Though he wouldn’t mind if it were….

“You don’t have a job anymore,” Aziraphale kindly pointed out.

“Oh. Right.”

“And I believe that you never did half the things you were meant to be doing, anyway.”

Crowley sighed. Too true. “Great. So I failed at being an angel. And I failed at being a demon. Is there anything left that I can be good at?”

“Yes.”

He raised an inquiring eyebrow. “What?”

“Being a good friend.” Aziraphale wrapped an arm around his shoulder, pulling him into an embrace. He whispered into Crowley’s ear. _“It’s what you are best at.”_

Crowley nestled against his shoulder, utterly at ease. “Not a bad storm after all.”

“Hm?”

“Brought you here.” He still had his arm around Aziraphale’s waist, relishing the hold. He felt a light touch on top of his head. “Did you just kiss my hair?”

“I did.” 

Then he felt angelic fingers brushing through his unruly locks. “That’s nice.” He never wanted to move again. 

“I love you,” Aziraphale whispered.

_Ah._ “That’s even nicer.” 

Aziraphale lifted Crowley’s head, hand cupped around his chin. He kissed his cheek. “ _Nice_ is a four-letter word, as I recall.”

“Not part of my former job description, no.” Crowley kissed Aziraphale’s cheek. “But as you pointed out, I’m currently unemployed.” He kissed the tip of Aziraphale’s nose. “And maybe I was secretly nice all along….”

“Wasn’t a secret to me.” Aziraphale touched Crowley’s lips. “Hm?”

Crowley nodded. Their lips met in a light kiss, a gentle exploration that nonetheless sent shivers of lightning along Crowley’s spine, and a cascade of deep thunder through his soul. 

“I love you, too,” he said when his senses returned. “Anytime you feel afraid, come to me for comfort.”

Aziraphale nodded. “You know, my dear, it would be easier if we were simply in the same place…that is—” He ended on questioning note. “—living in the same place…?”

Crowley thought about his bleak, unadorned flat, and he thought about the homely clutter of the bookshop. “Right. I’ll leave my furniture. But I’ll bring the plants and the souvenirs over.”

“I shall find room for them.”

They cuddled on the sofa for another hour or so, and then retired to Crowley’s bedroom for more. It rather surprised him when Aziraphale fell asleep, something he rarely did. He was quite tired, too, and ready to nod off when he remembered something.

As he lay on his back, Aziraphale curled up alongside with one arm around his chest, Crowley listened to the messages left on his phone, with the volume turned down low.

_“Crowley? Are you home? Please answer.”_

_“This storm is quite loud. Hello? Crowley?”_

_“This is an awfully bad storm—do pick up, my dear. It’s rather worrisome.”_

_“Oh!” Clatter clatter clunk rustle. “Sorry. I dropped the receiver. Such a thunderclap, I never…are you there?!?”_

_“Crowley! It’s Aziraphale! I am RATTLED!”_

_“Please pick up…oh dear. I want to come over…or perhaps you could come here…it’s too loud and I am frightened and it doesn’t seem ordinary and what if something horrid is happening again and for Heaven’s sake, where ARE you???”_

_“I do apologize for the previous message, my dear. I’ve had a nip of whisky and am feeling much better. Still, I should like your company at your earliest convenience.”_

_“THE WINDOWS ARE SHAKING HERE!!!”_

_“Ahem. Um, er…Crowley?? Can you hear me at all on that little intelligent phone thing of yours? Have you heard_ any _of my messages?”_

_“Perhaps I should just come over. There is an awful lot of rain out there, though. Oh, dear.”_

_“I do wish you would pick up. I don’t want to be alone. Crowley? Pleeeeeease?”_

_“It sounds like another end of the world out there. What if it is? If it is…oh, Crowley, why aren’t you here…what if we are parted…don’t leave me alone….I love you.”_

_Many throat-clearing noises. “Er…about that last message…um…I…er…Crowley? You’re not avoiding me now, are you? May I come over and explain? Hello?”_

_“There isn’t a single taxicab to be had in all of Soho. Drat.”_

_“I tried to walk over. The wind blew away my umbrella. Fiddlesticks!”_

_“Before I head over, could you tell me how to get inside your security building, my dear? Oh, never mind, I’ll just miracle my way up. It’s still raining, so I will simply have to get wet. I do hope you are awake. I realize it is quite late, and you like to sleep, but I do so need to be with you. Crowley, are you listening? I want to be with you. I want….please be there, Crowley. You are the only one who ever comforted me, all these long years. Crowley…do be home.”_

_Click._

He erased all but two of the messages, and then set the phone on the nightstand. 

Then he nestled into Aziraphale’s embrace, his head on the angel’s pillow, and after placing a single kiss on his dear friend’s forehead, Crowley closed his eyes in sleep.


End file.
